to julien of montreal
you math is correct, but the numbers do not reflect the importance of the lost forest. For Brazil,they cut down the natural forest, while in other countries, like China, the increase or the loss will be the planted forest, less valuable compared with the Amazon forest. Is that right?

I wouldn´t bother too much with the furniture that you place in your living room, but, rather, the beef you put in your dish. The main current drivers of Brazilian deforestation are soybean plantation and cattle ranching, with cattle accounting for ca. 4/5 of the whole Amazon deforestation alone. See, for example, the following link for more information about that:

So, feel more ashamed of enjoying a juicy beef from an Amazonian ranch than resting in a cosy mahogany coach. And that´s not a problem with rich countries pressing Brazilians, but more about emerging countries economic growth and global food shortages, inviting Brazilian farmers to produce more and more.

After more than half a century of living I do not have any more illusions: the world as we have known is really going down the drain. Nuclear power and atomic bombs are still popular. Wars, all sorts of killings, specially by bombs, rapes, religious fanaticism, racism, poverty alongside with wealth, many a incurable diseases... Worrying about deforestation seems a lit bit off...

A few things make me doubt the validity of the chart:
- The average deforestation in Brazil is stated to be 2.64m hectares a year on average. A visual check on the graph suggests it stands more around 1.5m.
- If we divide the total forested area by the average annual logging, Brazil and Indonesia have 200 years of logging ahead, Congo 500 years. That sounds absurdly conservative.

@trustbutverufy
it's hard for brazil to protect it when most people from richer countries such as usa, canada and uk come in to pay the natives for the wood, take them away to build homes, make medice etc etc.it's much more money that they can ever make locally or from government help.
how can you compete with money in this economy we live in?
people, would you give in having your confort? Is sustainability profitable?

In the map in the link above, shows the "Triple Frontera" and the borders between three countries.

On the left Paraguay, On the bottom Argentina, The rest is Brazil.
The map clearly shows which country protect its forest and which country don't.

Now a Invite to everybody to read the note "The Miracle of Cerrado". It was writing by The Economist a few months ago and in that note The Economist clearly supported the deforest, because soy (and industrial agriculture) are causes of this destruction.

@ tanahkitarusak and eZVF53N75E, I too found it hard to believe that Canada had less forest than the US. According to the latest figures I could find, Canada has 347.7 million ha of forest (2006) and the US 302 million ha in 1997, so unless the US has grown a lot of forest in the last 14 years or Canada has done some serious lumber jacking in the past 5 years, Canada has more forest although the US still has a lot. Not sure where the Economist got its figures from.

The main increase was in Mato Grosso, jumping to 76km2 480km2, if you do the math, the increase is even bigger than the 483% said in the article. As the Mato Grosso responsible for 80% of the increase in deforestation .. What I meant is that the article is misleading. The main increase was there and not in othes states. Another issue is that the parameters used by INPE are unclear, often classifying other biomes such as Amazon. Not for incompetence, but mainly by the perennial shortage of staff. Another point I found interesting about it is called agribusiness. If you're speaking of Mato Grosso, is valid, however if you consider the other states of the federation where there is prevalence of AF, the issue is much more related to riverine and not the large estates.
And next time try to be less arrogant in their reply.
Thank you.

As a Brazilian I fell ashamed when reading comments, like yours, attacking the current and just ended administration, based solely in ideology and with total disregard for the facts.

If you look at the bar diagram at the right side of the bigger one, you will notice the dramatic drop in the deforestation rate that happened during Lula administration and is being continued by Dilma’s.

Instead of being against any initiative of actual government, just because it is not coming from the political party you support, try posting some suggestion on how to improve even more, this program of forest preservation, which by the way, is the most successful of Brazilian history.

snipers: and non-Westerners enjoy immigrating to the west and ALWAYS get big expensive cars. In Holland some MPs cycle to workplace; can you imagine that beyond the West? And also I cannot remember seeing any conservationist who is non-Western.

The article is wrong
Now, the correct:
"(..)The most recent release from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed a 473% increase in deforestation during March and April 2011 compared with the same period last year, in one of brazilians state: Mato Grosso."
So, before everything, rewrite the article than we can talk about deforestation.

try to know what's the quality of new added forest in China. increase by 2.99m hectares seems to me like a huge expansion. Can anyone tell me the loss in Brazil can be compensated in some other places?

Today is a very sad day for Brazil. This new Forests Code just approved is another populist meassure adopted by PT, the rulling party here. It allows people to deforest the 10% of their properties the govenrment never allowed them to deforest. The justification of increasing planted area, and only for small producers is irrelevant, as what in fact will happen is that trees will go down, river flows trasnfered and so on. Lost of votes from farmlords and money from them to next election canpain is guaranteed...

It will be 2 victories for the "guerrilha" who deforests the Amazon, as they have killed Zé Claudio, the modern Chico Mendes who protected the forest like his own life. What an amazing charachter...

The only way to solve this deforst problem is by negotiating with the buyers, just like was done with diamonds, which ended Sierra Leoa civil war. If buyers don't buy ilegal wood from the Amazon, there will be no incentive to cut trees. But the buyers are in Europe and US. So it is quite easy, dear "The Economist" to throw all the blame on Brazil. Of course most of it is our fault, but not all...

I fell shamed of our congress. Bunch of ignorants who think the people belong to them. The sad thing is that Brazilians in general are so ignorant, as they don't what what's going on in Brasilia, much less they do protests.

Actually yesterday there protests against taxes in São Paulo, the most organized state. Fuesl stations offered gas for 50% the original price for one day, to show how much taxes we pay. A big queue formed in these gas stations, and do you know what the government did ? Trafic Policemen just gave parking tickets to all in the queue, making money out of a protest !!!

What the people did ? Nothing, go pay this fine unless you want to stay clean. It is discussing to see a claund in congress (tiririca). BRAZIL IS NOT A SERIOUS COUNRY...

//It will probably be a couple of years before it is possible to tell for sure whether the government's proposal to regularise land tenure in the Amazon region is resulting in more active chainsaws there.//

But it is a welcome effort from Brazil.

Also, the chart shows all other four of top five nations: Russia, USA, Canada and China are all doing good in conservation of forest areas.